Lecturers are passionate, highly qualified instructors who serve an important role in EMU’s educational mission by teaching a significant portion of the classes. As we teach many of the lower-level courses, we are often the first instructors incoming students to the university meet. We have proven time and again our dedication to our students and our passion for our profession. At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, we moved our classes to virtual spaces overnight. In the months following we continued to do what we do best: we developed new tactics to foster student learning and support our students through all manners of challenges.

Yet, despite the critical role we play, many of us face unsustainable precarity in our working conditions. The COVID pandemic only exacerbated and exposed existing problems. Among the challenges we have experienced at EMU are a lack of job security, no pay equity, no input on matters that affect our working conditions, no access to health insurance for part-time lecturers, and the continued threat of losing access to parking. The list could go on.

Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions. And it is time we rise and unite around common goals to change our working conditions; to fight for job security and pay equity; to ensure that following our passion for teaching becomes a sustainable career path.

Our students and our community need us.

The following provides a roadmap for EMUFT to make sure that we are going in the right direction. Driven by voices and input of EMUFT members, this strategic plan focuses on three major goals, each divided into several objectives. By engaging our members, the EMU community and coalition partners we ensure that we are in the strongest possible position to fight for better working conditions for us and through that for better learning conditions for our students.

Goal 1: Building a stronger EMUFT

This goal addresses internal factors that will make EMUFT stronger in the long run. Only if we all pull in the same direction do we have the bargaining power to bring about change at EMU. The objectives listed below preference member voices and engagement

Objective 1: Building an organizing culture

Organizing is an ongoing process rather than an episodic one and should be informed by policies and plans built on listening and extensive interaction. It requires a shift from “what the union does for you” to members taking ownership and asking, “what can I contribute”. As a non-professionalized, member-driven organization we are dependent on the engagement of the many. This can be achieved by building up the stewards, the organizer core, and providing additional training and processes that ensure each member’s voice is heard.

Objective 2: Leadership development

To ensure the long-term viability of EMUFT, we need engaged and dedicated leadership. This is of particular importance due to the fluctuation in employment status many of our members face. A central tenet to leadership development is the size of the leadership core: a larger core will protect against potential losses. This can be achieved through recruitment of natural leaders from various departments. Greater diversity from across the university also ensures a larger spectrum of voices. Central to this objective are also more training opportunities.

Objective 3: Increased member engagement

We are only as strong as our member engagement and diversity! To provide members with the opportunities to make their voices heard we need to offer more spaces to do so. Committees, the Steward Council, workshops, professional development, socials, and the Membership Council are good opportunities for engagement. Additionally, strong and efficient communication strategies utilizing a variety of channels are crucial.

Goal 2: Building collective power

To effect meaningful change at EMU, building collective power across the campus community is critically important. The more people are engaged in the fight, the more power we will have. Lecturers are part of a larger whole. Improved learning conditions for students go beyond improved working conditions for lecturers. As such, all segments of the EMU community need to work together.

Objective 1: Align PTL and FTL contract

The 2023 bargaining year provides the unique opportunity to align and potentially merge the part-time and full-time lecturer contracts, strengthening working conditions for both groups. Since the inception of EMUFT, we have been one union with two separate contracts. This division leads to a loss in bargaining power for each of the units. Standing together, would provide us with greater power.

Objective 2: Increased shared governance

We want access to at least the same level of shared governance laid out in Article XIII of the AAUP contract with EMU; in awareness that this level of shared governance is mere lip service, this objective is expandable. Lecturers currently have no voice in matters that affect their working conditions, beginning with curriculum decisions. This lack of voice negatively impacts our students’ learning conditions because our deep knowledge base is not utilized to improve the institution as a whole.

Objective 3: Increased campus solidarity

Truly changing working conditions at EMU, will require building solidarity across campus

with both students and other employee unions. This will require an educational campaign to draw attention to the precarity under which lecturers work. It also requires the re-imagining of the All-Union Council.

Goal 3: Advance Lecturer Standing

Improving the standing of lecturers does not only have to shift at EMU, but nationwide. To achieve this, EMUFT needs to actively work with unions across the state and the nation.

Objective 1: Build a coalition with other Non-Tenure Track Unions across Michigan

As a member of AFT Michigan, we have the opportunity to expand our fight across the state and engage other higher education locals. This coalition building will lead to greater power. As EMU is unlikely to be at the forefront of changing working conditions for lecturers, a willingness to improve conditions from other higher education institutions in the state will yield a greater likelihood for change at EMU. By supporting other locals in their fights, we will receive support in return.

Objective 2: Become an active participant in the national movement to redefine higher education.

Through the Scholars for the New Deal and other national organizations the movement to reform higher education has been growing. Engagement in the national campaign needs to be a priority to ensure that legislation is passed at the national and state levels that support improved working conditions for lecturers and secure the right to organize. Furthermore, engagement in the national campaign would help increase our power basis.